A Simple Soul | Page 3

by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR

[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] and
Dagny, [email protected]

A SIMPLE SOUL By Gustave Flaubert


CHAPTER I

For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Eveque had envied
Madame Aubain her servant Felicite.
For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed,
ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the
butter and remained faithful to her mistress--although the latter was by
no means an agreeable person.
Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who
died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and
a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of
Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely
amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in Saint-Melaine, and
moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her ancestors
and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its slate-covered
roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow street that led to
the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to
stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from the parlour, where
Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near the window. Eight
mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white wainscoting. An old
piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered with a pyramid of
old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow marble mantelpiece,
in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock represented a
temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as it was on a
lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame's bed-chamber, a large room papered in
a flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in
the costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which
there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the
parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets. Then
a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled on
the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big black
desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink sketches,
Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better times and
vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window lighted Felicite's
room, which looked out upon the meadows.

She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without
interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared
away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the
ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand.
Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for cleanliness,
the lustre on her brass sauce-pans was the envy and despair of other
servants. She was most economical, and when she ate she would gather
up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing should be wasted
of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was baked
especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back
with a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings,
and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she
looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age;
erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working
automatically.


CHAPTER II
Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her father,
who was a